Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Bautista joins the Blue Birds

TORONTO — The Blue Jays have acquired infielder Jose Bautista from the Pirrsburgh Pirates in exchange for the well-traveled player to be named. No word yet on what sort of role Bautista will be filling with Toronto.

My guess is that this is simply a move to add some insurance at third base. Toronto is without Scott Rolen (left shoulder) and it’s not clear when he’ll be back, and utilityman Marco Scutaro has been the regular at the hot corner.

At Triple-A, Toronto’s depth at third base isn’t exactly strong. There’s Hector Luna, Sergio Santos and a handful of others. Adding Bautista seems to add a little more depth — not a bad idea if Rolen will be out for much longer.

More later…

UPDATE: 6:26 p.m. — So manager Cito Gaston was no-committal about saying Bautista would step in as Toronto’s regular third baseman, but it wounds like he’ll be getting regular playing time, especially against left-handed pitching.

Bautista is under contract for $1.8 million this year and is contractually controllable for the next three years. He wasn’t in Toronto yet, but was expected to be with the club in time for the weekend set against the Red Sox. No corresponding move has been made to clear room on the roster, but it would appear that Kevin Mench is the odd-man out, though David Eckstein could potentially be a candidate.

Toronto put in a claim on Bautista and then worked out a deal for the third baseman. The Jays now have six months to complete the trade, according to GM J.P. Ricciardi. Toronto’s GM added that he’s still monitoring the waiver wire daily to see if there’s any other options, considering that the Jays are still on the outer edges of the playoff race.

17 Comments

Interesting that the deal is for a player to be named later. We sure had better not given up much for a career .240 hitter who hits like a wimp with risp. I wonder why we even did this deal unless we can send him back at the end of the year.
I’d rather have Scutaro at 3rd. Scutaro is hitting for higher average and hits .281 with risp, Bautista is .220 career with risp. Bautista has a bit more pop, but that matters little with a risp stat as low as it is.

What in Gods name is with this Bautista move this guy is no good,Scutaro is twice the player he is.JP is grasping at straws again,When will he learn not to waste money on junk unless it’s for his nose.

Garry
Do you remember this line from JP: “It’s just a guy we’ve liked for a long time,” Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi said. Remember when he said that about Mench, Wilkerson, Stewart, Benitez, Royce, etc. etc. etc.. You’d think he could at least come up with a new line to sell these guys, wouldn’t you. Lol
How much do you want to bet, we traded one of our pitching prospects to get this guy?

Good night for the Jays , it’s not often you wack the Yanks that badly. It will be interesting to see if we manage the Sox again, but we also need friends to take care of Minnesota who are only .5 games back of the Sox in the wild card.

I hope you’re right, but I just don’t think you are. I just hope it isn’t one of our key pitching prospects. JP is getting into a nasty habit of bringing all these guys in here who don’t hit squat with risp and then we wonder why we don’t consistently score runs.

Wilner’s guessing that the Jays are likely giving up Russ Adams for Bautista.

I personally don’t see this as either a good move or a bad move. If it is indeed Russ Adams who’s shipped out, I’m okay with that — the guy’s waiver fodder waiting to happen. Bautista apparently hits lefties decently, too, so that’s not too shabby — the Jays are brutal against lefties this year. Also, it does give the Jays some depth at a position that’s pretty barebones in the high minors. I mean, come on…. Hector Luna? Sergio Santos? If something happened to Scutaro, things would be pretty desperate.

Bautista’s not much of an upgrade, but I think he’s at least a little bit better at third and with the bat than Luna or Santos.

Will this move change the Jays’ fortunes over night? Definitely not, but it can’t really hurt either….

Gsumner any way you can find out what J.Mac’s stats are since Cito took over,If they give them Adams for Bautista I’m all for the trade,but remember Wilners an Idiot who knows it all and no one else knows anything.

If the Jays can finish 10 or 12 games over 500 this year than we will have something to look forward to next year.

Replacing Scutaro after he hit a 3 run homer the night before? Stupid J.P, we all know you are just trying to save your job.

I think the reason for all of Jmacs playing time is that Cito has him planned as everyday shortstop for next year. I honestly don’t have a problem with that. I would love to see someone at short with more power then Jmac, but if he keeps hitting the way he is and keep up his defence, he will sure make up for that power.

Garry/Enigma
Actually, Macdonald has really picked it up when Cito changed him to a pull hitter. Ove the last 10 games he’s hitting .297 with 5 rbi’s. While I don’t expect he’ll keep up that pace, it certainly is starting to look like he could become a consistent .250-.260 hitter which would be great.

I’d like to see what Rolen can do with a fully healed shoulder. It is obvious that he came to the Jays in April feeling but aggrevated the shoulder mid-season. We could definately use an upgrade on production at third base. Look at basically every other team in the league, with the exception of a few, are getting solid production from 3rd base. Especially in our division (Mora, Longoria, A-Rod, Lowell).http://homerfoodandhistory.mlblogs.com/

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